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I close my eyes, trying to make the image go away, all that blood and gore, the violence.
But the images don’t go away. They change.
I’m looking through Solon’s eyes now.
Look down at bloodied hands in disbelief.
And when he throws his head back and roars with so much pain and rage, that same power feels caught in my chest, like he’s screaming through me.
“I killed her,” he whispers to me. “On purpose.”
But the image changes again and suddenly he’s running into the woods, screaming at the moon, fighting against a monster deep inside him, claws reaching up through his chest and trying to pull him under into his own madness and insanity, looping around and around and I feel it all, I feel it all.
“Lenore,” he says sharply, grabbing my face between his hands.
It’s enough to make the images dissolve, but the feelings remain.
I open my eyes and stare deep into his. I see his remorse and shame and guilt and pain in his blue depths. But I also feel what it was like to be him, the memories clinging to my soul.
“You felt so alone,” I say in a hush. “You felt so damn alone.”
Alone, empty, mad. His life was a horror show, and he was the horror.
It breaks me in two.
He swallows, his jaw tightening, eyes surveying mine in a frantic, wild way.
“If only you were there, my dear,” he says to me, his voice ragged. “You are the balm to my monstrous heart.”
I press my hand against his chest, to feel his heartbeat, to know that this man isn’t the same one I saw, and yet I know they are one and the same. “Please tell me what it all means. Tell me what I saw, what I felt.”
“It means I was the monster under your bed, the villain from your nightmares, the darkness at your back. I was everything the fairy tales warned young girls about. And now I’m here. With you.” He reaches out, tucking my hair behind my ear, eyes pining me in place. “I bet you’re having second thoughts about everything now. You should be.”
I shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere, Solon. I just want to understand.”
He exhales, pressing his lips together. “I loved Esmerelda, but I wasn’t ready to love anything or anyone. I had just spent three hundred years running around mad. A monster. No conscious. No guide. No hope. I was bloodthirsty, I was full of rage over what I was. Killing for fun, out of anger. Just…darkness.”
Three hundred years? I can’t even imagine. I had only a taste of it.
“But over time, things change,” he goes on. “Over time, you evolve. I started to evolve into my madness. I made peace with the beast. The monster inside me. I started to find a moral compass, I did what I could to be a good…person. I hated that I was a vampire, but it was impossible to separate that from myself because it is who I am. And I was the monster too, but I could get it to behave. I had been doing so well until I met her. My desire, my feelings for her, unleashed the darkness inside me. I killed her because I couldn’t control myself.”
“And the boy?”
“The father went mad himself. With grief, I suppose. He killed his own son. I had a feeling she was the only thing that kept him alive.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say softly, running my fingers over his brow, brushing his hair to the side. “I can’t imagine…”
“You don’t have to imagine,” he says tightly. “You saw it. You know what I am. And that’s why I can’t…I just can’t risk that with you.”
“Solon,” I say, my tone firm. “I already slept with you. You bit me and you stopped. You are not the monster you were. That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago. You said you were evolving, well, you’ve evolved.”
“You don’t understand. I will always be that monster. It’s the way I was made.”
“Made?” I ask, stumbling over the word.
He gives me a sad smile. “I’m not like the rest of them, Lenore.”
I blink at him, straightening up. “You said vampires weren’t made anymore.”
“They aren’t,” he says with a sigh. “Because of what happened to me. And others. I was considered a lucky one. There are very few of us left. The rest of them, they all died from their own inner demons, their own monsters and madness. We are a scourge on this earth.”
Oh my god. No wonder he was so adamant about me not turning Elle into a vampire.
“So you were a human once?” I ask incredulously.
He nods. “Yes. I was.”
“Oh my god. Do you…do you remember anything about that life?”
He sucks his lower lip in for a moment, looking away in thought. “Just bits and pieces. Sometimes I dream about it, but I can’t really fit it all together. All those centuries of madness drove my past life away, buried it in the tar.”
